-Quick Review-Assassin's Creed IV Black Flag is a HUGE open-world, pirate-themed adventure game where you sale the ocean with a crew and your very own ship to find treasure, maybe complete the story or ignore it and just pirate.

-Detailed breakdown review-Confession Have you ever gotten yourself into something that was way over your head? You realized "woah, this is going to be way more work then I was expecting"... That is how I feel about writing this review.After playing AC Black Flag for just a couple hours I knew writing a review was going to be a nightmare because there's just SO MUCH STUFF!

So I must come clean and admit: I'm not really sure this review will be adequate. I plan to make a youtube review where I can hopefully outline my thoughts in more detail and with better control... But until then, you've got this mess!

Story: Your story begins in 1715, you are Edward Kenway, thrill seeker, sailor, scoundrel... Pirate. Edward left his would-be-Fiancée and everything that he knew to set sail for the Caribbean.Along his journey he ends up making contact with the assassins, you know... the assassins with a creed? Yeah, those guys. For reason I will not spoil, he eventually is won over to their cause and helps them... But not before he has a jolly good time pirating!

Oh wait, you just got pulled out of a simulation... What's going on here, you thought this game was about Pirates in the 1715's! Here's the thing, you're actually "playing" the memories of Edward Kenway for a company called "Abstergo Entertainment".They claim to be gathering footage for an up and coming Pirate movie they're doing on the characters in the 1715's and they need your help because you're naturally gifted with this "memory-brain-meld" technology. (It's basically VR, but VR in Sword Art Online style... but that's my guess anyhoo.)

I could write a few more paragraphs on the story, but lets just say things are definitely not as black and white as they seem, between Abstergo and their goals, or the people *YOU* work with, for that mater.

Gameplay: I could break the gameplay into a ton of sub categories, but for simplicity I'm going to focus on the two main combat features: Kenway's fighting/stealth/etc, and naval combat.

KenwayKenway himself has quite the assortment of secondary weapons, even several different primary weapons, and don't get me started on the pickup weapons! Weapons for days!Kenway at first just goes to his dual swords for combat, but eventually he gets the sneaky-sleeve-daggers. There's probably a formal official name for them, but I'm calling them sneaky-sleeve-daggers.

Depending on the weapons being used the animations are different, so a counter with swords looks and FEELS different then a counter with daggers, or even a counter when unarmed or holding a pickup-weapon.

The Hand-to-hand combat is tailored for ambush striking, and then running away and finding a place to hide. Or you can be a man like me and duel your way through the English lines. Optional: you can also die a lot like me, because you're playing the game incorrectly. (My point is that the game isn't over if you get caught, normally there are numerous ways to get to objectives, you can sneak in, fight in, or a hybrid strategy. I personally like picking up sharp shooter's Rifles after they die, and sniping my target and running away making "woop woop woop" noises.)

JackdawWhen Kenway obtains himself a ship, he names it the Jackdaw, a Jackdaw is a small bird part of the Crow Family (All the European readers are probably like "DUH", but hey! I've never seen one, okay? I'm sorry!). The Jackdaw starts out quite fragile, but as you loot and pirate around you get enough money and resources to upgrade her.And Upgrade her you do... with guns, armor, cargo, aesthetics, sails, ammo, crew quarters. Trust me when I say that you're definitely investing in this ship.

Now comes the part I was skeptical about going into the game... Sailing a ship.Hands down, this was one of the most awesome and freeing sensations in the game! When you're sailing well, and can direct your ship where you want to go, the game is golden, couldn't be better. But when you're pinned between an enemy ship, and getting mortared by the local fortress... That magic dries up faster then rain in the Sahara.

So the Naval combat is touch and go, as a whole it adds to the experience, and definitely doesn't bog down the gameplay in my opinion. However, I will note that some of the most difficult challenges in the game involve the Jackdaw, so when the game says "Hey, you should upgrade your ship before you do this Mission", You darn well toot'n should upgrade that crap. If you don't you have no one to blame but yourself for how much death you'll have!

Here's where we come to my final note about the gameplay... specifically when dealing with the Jackdaw. You will hit literal walls that you cannot pass unless you go pirate-farm for a bit so you can upgrade your ship. Some people might be able to get by without it, but I had to go explore around, you can't really shoot straight through the story.Even though the story is quite linear and you can go from story chapter to story chapter, there is a type of "gear check" that is in place to slow you down. AC Black flag was designed to take loads of time to play, to some people believe it or not, that's a turn off for a game! To others it's like "YES, inject that into my arm with an IV please, ahhhh yeah".

Conclusion: I knew this review would become huge... I haven't even been able to get into the finer details of the different weapons you unlock for Kenway or the Jackdaw, the mini-games, the multiplayer (ugh... don't buy it for the multiplayer please, it took forever to get it to work), special events, getting world completion, uplay, uplay achievements... OH CRAP UPLAY!Hey, Hi! did you make it to the bottom of this review? This game requires you to play the game through Uplay, Uplay MUST run in the background even if you boot the game through the steam client. That's one of the biggest gripes people will probably have about the game, other then getting stuck on ambient objects while trying to parkour... ACK! I couldn't even talk about the parkour!

How to write a bad review about Assassin’s Creed IV Black Flag:- Activate the key on a brandnew uPlay account.- Rarely use uPlay, because you're busy right now, life and stuff.- Forget about your account.- Try to play it again in a year. Fail.- Browse the support forum of Ubisoft and find a topic that describes your problem.- Realize that you can't play it anymore, like the other games you activated. Curse.

This is in my opinion the best game in the long list of titles in the Assassin's Creed universe. Most of the old mechanics are kept from previous games, but the game also introduces a couple of very exciting new ones. Almost gone are also the storyarch outside the Animus, which I've never found particulary enjoyable.